Source : Jay’s Toons

When something sells, everyone flocks to be associated with it and of course, the brands will not stay behind. For some years now, during the Cricket World Cup time, we get campaigns specifically to encash the affiliation and inflame patriotism for the country. There are brands, which directly relate themselves to the Pakistani team, while others simply joyride on the frenzy that ensues.

The first one to pop the bubble this year was Coke, who have been quite aggressive with their Cricket frenzy in Pakistani spirit for some time. Pepsi of course, would not be left behind and came up with a recent ad, which shows the Pakistani team having some fun in the airport.

Oh wait, doesn’t this look familiar? I trawled around the web just to search what was up and here’s what I found:

A football based ad of Nike from ’98…

If I say I’m speechless, it would be right. Both ads even start the same way, but where the football commercial keeps you sitting at the edge of your seat due to its quick pace and quality, the Pepsi ad bores you with the same old story about the last Pepsi being reserved for the winner.

Is this the best that could be done on a brand that should by now be evolving into the new generation’s voice, rather than giving audience stale ideas that have been pulled off of youtube? I mean, we are entering the digital age here, where the target audience is just sitting there waiting for something good. You just have to know, how to reach them.

The only thing I can say in the end: “Son, I am disappoint”.

An hour later i was home, i was anxious to get the latest news, the fear that the death toll may have been very high was getting on my nerves, but as soon as i was about to reach the TV remote my mom warned “Jamal don’t ! ” her eyes were red from crying ” The footage is unbearable “.  That is exactly what happens each time there is a bomb blast in the country. The news channels blast out television screens with explicit, graphic insensitive imagery. Parts of human body drenched in blood, a head in a policeman’s hand as if its a trophy that you just got to find the culprit and yes any heads found must immediately belong to the suicide bomber and must be shown on all news channels. Yes I knew the news on TV would be all wrapped in imagery that would give any sane person nightmares for ages but i needed the news so the demon’s idiot box had to be turned on.

Ten people dead over 80 injured, mostly women and children and a missing child too and yes the two trophies were also found, the head of the suicide bomber which i am very sure will soon turn out to have belonged to an innocent victim because that is what usually happen to most of the  found heads at a bomb site. But the ordeal of the day doesn’t end here, a news channel announces that educational institutes will remain closed for the following day, after which the educational ministry announces that schools will remain open. The two conflicting statements caused more confusion and calls from close family members started coming to me to confirm if the schools and their universities will remain closed or open sadly i was as clueless as they were because some privet schools had called parents telling them that their institution will actually remain closed. The only advice i gave them was to keep their kids home, and let them skip a day just to be on the safe side.

Most news channels are now showing our politicians either blaming it all on the inability of the other or pretending to be an expert in everything and knowing all in the world or just lamely being them selves.

The city on the other hand is again in a grip of some unrest and violence dotting tomorrows date with uncertainties, no one knows what the three day mourning announced would bring to the people of city the coming day and since it is Friday tomorrow most protests and the expected unrest would likely be after the Friday prayers in the afternoon.

but who knows what tomorrow morning brings for us  while we grief the innocent lives that were lost, we cant even imagine the pain and trauma their family are going through right now and also of those 80 people who are injured and being treated at the moment. will the three day mourning, burning tires, violent protests, pelting stones at moving cars and setting them ablaze help ? I really doubt it would !

Photo: Hira S. Malik

It was only less than a month back that i had my first personal encounter with the flood displaced people living in a small shanty town here at the Chakra goth, korangi. It was difficult to understand how over fifty people, including children living in a small single room house would be managing, and there were several such homes. but once we were there the picture become more disturbing than i could ever imagine. Almost all of these flood displaced people were infected badly with scabies specially the children, who are twice as many in number as the adults. There were several pregnant women, some of them needed immediate medical attention, many babies had diarrhea.

After a thorough assessment by the members of FLP, the NGO i am associated with for the flood relief efforts, they were immediately provided with food, and their medical needs were taken care of during the following few days. as some who needed a long term treatment are still being provided with the necessary medical support.

My next trip was to Thatta and another one to Jamshoro, both locations almost 2 to 3 hour drive from Karachi. The situation of the flood survivors there left me much more worried and disturbed. Besides the diseases like, skin infections, scabies, eye infections, diarrhea which are common almost throughout the camps for flood displaced people, there are pregnant women who need medical attention, women with medical issues since years but have never ever thought of taking any medical advice all their lives. mostly all women are week and ill, in no better condition than the goats and cows in the farm, actually even coats and cows have been taken much more care of.

most of these women don’t even know the basic of hygiene, health, and self care. They just know they are the way they are, if they have a pain it just is, it had been since years or months, most of them don’t even recall for how long they have been suffering. when you approach them they want you to make their kids more healthy, and solve their health issues, they wont even talk about their own issues unless you ask them and tell them that they need to take care of them selves as well.

Another thought provoking account of an interaction Naveen Naqvi had with a group of those flood displaced people who don’t follow the common religious view of the majority of the society can be read here .

It is nothing but a thick dark cloud of ignorance that these people have been living in. men because they move around and meet other people and socialize much more are more health conscious for them selves, but for their women it seems they care not much. there seems to be no concept of civic sense among these people. In camps too although they will chose to live shelter less but wont move in with person from another clan or village so they live close by in clusters of people from their own clan and yet often the cooperation there should be between the occupants of the tents right next to each other seems missing.

These people have been living under a strong feudal and strictly Petrarch system for generations, the poison of which has seeped deep into their upbringing. Their social structure, life style, behavior and ignorance clearly show the signs of it all, whats more sad is the fact that that it is actually our own fault that we have kept them enslaved and ignorant and ended up completely destroying the mind sets of a whole generation of ours and maybe also of those to follow if we don’t realize out mistakes of the past now and take actions to improve the society we too are an important part of.

like many have said, this floods has shown us the real face of the population of out country and given us an opportunity to change once and for all. The next step is to rehabilitate these flood displaced people, which will give us a chance to re structure their lives for their own benefits. The need is to give priority to education, micro-finance projects, gender equality, health and care projects. so their tomorrow and the future of our country can have a chance to come out of this thick dark mist of ignorance and hopelessness.

Image Credits : Hira S. Malik

The makeup over USA designed, Saudi-assisted, GHQ scripted, NROfied The-mockracy is, and as predicted in last elections, slowly coming off and the ugly face underneath appearing as country plunges into more uncertainty. The murder of Dr. Imran Farooq provided PML an opportunity to shake hands with MQM. This while Karachi is burning again and the circus of accusations and point scoring is ON. It is interesting that everyone (except PPP obviously) wants a change but no one wants to be blamed mainly because everyone wants this “change” for its own benefit and not the nation. “Change” itself being an alien commodity in general in our nation’s psychology the cartoon above is a good summary on Ishaq dar’s visit to 90. And this analysis by SS supplements it well. Every anti-PPP force is looking at each other to cast the first stone. PML wants MQM to end its support to Zardari in capital. MQM is googling for some “Muhibbe-watan-Generals”. The Generals waiting for the courts to make their life easy. The courts are hoping The-mocratic forces to join and bring a Constitutional change and people of PAKISTAN, while tired of the circus are a helpless, directionless herd waiting for some holy-assistance (which isnt coming and in fact reverse happening). Waiting to join this circus is former General Musharraf (the architect of this mess) and Imran Khan (his CV too good to be in politics) with JI (want to make Aafia the next PM) and JUI (5 ingulian ghee mei, always). Amid all this is PAKISTAN’s media, the circus telecast Inc. Welcome to Pakistan’s style of The-Mockracy.

One can see why i have often said all current major political parties in PAK are different shades of the same rotten faces. When it was possible all have used terror to silence anyone who has opposed their views. We saw it on May 12 in previous setup and now the PPP has decided to silence its critics. For ordinary man, democracy in PAK hasnt been anything better than a self decieving dream. While the country is under water, PPP gov instead of some work has decided to scare few media groups for exposing it While international press is questioning Zardari’s own personality, local media has simply reported some ugly truths but looks like PPP is still living in 90s or probably like Raja said 70s. Shall we learn anything from history?

in the mean while the girl’s mother too was back from the medical story, and now they were walking away to get a rickshaw for their next destination.

if you may have realized, i am not at all a well built person, actually i am quite skinny, and was no match for these culprits, but what scared them was the feat that if i could have raised alarm, and the shop keepers and passers by would probably have beaten the crap out of him.

people keep asking me how they can bring a change in the society, i tell you, It takes not much to do so, if you want to see a change, the next time you spot a man gazing a women, ask him out loud what his problem is. If you are a men looking at this culprit alone will be enough to get him back to his senses. Be the change you want, feel and take the responsibility of the society you are a part of, and you will see the change coming.

[image: kazmisahib-flickr]